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Old 13th June 2014, 03:06 AM   #1
PixyMisa
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Quantum Field Theory: The Woo Stops Here

I'd like to introduce people to this talk titled The Higgs Boson and the Fundamental Nature of Reality by physicist and skeptic Sean Carroll.

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I AGREE


In it, Dr Carroll explains that while there is still much left to discover about the Universe, the fundamental physics of everyday life is now fully understood, and he explains how we know that we know this.

The result of this is that any claimed effect that happens in our everyday world (and not just in a particle accelerator or a supernova) and that also requires new laws of physics is automatically known to be false.

So homeopathy, for example, is ruled out by the normal laws of chemistry and physics. The result Dr Carroll discusses means that that is the end of the debate; there are no undiscovered laws of physics that can save the hypothesis. (If you were suggesting that homeopathy worked only on colliding neutron stars, that might be different, but here on Earth, it's dead and buried.)

I hope everyone will watch the video, because it's fascinating and entertaining and the result is truly remarkable. I don't expect that it will actually stop many arguments, but what it does mean is that we can say at precisely which point any given argument became, um, pointless.
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Old 13th June 2014, 03:19 AM   #2
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Nutshell: Any woo claim can be soundly defeated by holding an EM sensor up and pointing to the zero reading.


Amazing. I find myself in a Heisenberg state here. I am, at once, sceptical and a believer.

The real problem for me is that I am not a science guy. I am a dolt. Give me two numbers, ask me to add them and I start clicking on a calculator icon. There is no credible way I can argue from the QFT and even believe myself.

I guess I'll have to absorb some of the lingo of this new argument and lurk for a while until I find some purchase for my very simple mind.

Thanks for the thread and for championing this amazing new angle Pixy.

Carry on.
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Old 13th June 2014, 04:24 AM   #3
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Thanks, PixyMisa. It is indeed a fascinating video, and well worth the time. I'm not sure that any hard core woos will be swayed by it, but perhaps some more knowledgeable ones might be. This may become a very interesting discussion!
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Old 13th June 2014, 04:26 AM   #4
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Originally Posted by Innocuous View Post
(We might be getting into derail territory - maybe we need a new thread "Does Quantum Field Theory disprove all woo?")

Even limiting ourselves to just the forces we already know, no one can predict all the interesting ways that they can be combined into complex mechanical, biological, or chemical systems (for example). As the QFT lecturer said, we aren't done. Maybe a mind-reader reads your mind by sending out microscopic flying worms that burrow into your head and transmit the results back using radio waves. Or they just fly back with sampled results. It is an extraordinary ability and only happens every billion or so births. Nothing there violates QFT. QFT can't prove that it won't work, because the mechanism is consistent with QFT. Once we get our hands on a psychic, we can test it and rule out the flying worms, or maybe verify them. But QFT does not preclude it.

This is all I am saying: QFT doesn't rule out flying worms! Also, I do not believe in flying worms.
If you have to use QFT to disprove flying worms you might be over egging the pudding.
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Old 13th June 2014, 05:33 AM   #5
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The hard core woos would just point to the fact that voyager1 is not 4 billion light years away, therefore everything else he says is false

Thanks for posting this, I hadn't seen it before.
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Old 13th June 2014, 06:05 AM   #6
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I wish Jabba & a few other would watch the last 10 minutes of that video...
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Old 13th June 2014, 06:13 AM   #7
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Of course, the argument rests on QFT being true, so we also need to point out how the discovery of the Higg's boson was predicted by QFT, and that it is highly unlikely that another theory that encompasses paranormal as well as everything that QFT encompass, will fit reality as well as QFT.

The old skeptic art of debunking is still important, because that is essentially showing how all seemingly paranormal events can be explained within normal physics, i.e. QFT.
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Old 13th June 2014, 06:20 AM   #8
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Originally Posted by Aepervius View Post
I wish Jabba & a few other would watch the last 10 minutes of that video...
Well, Jabba is a Christian, and like all believers he thinks that there is a god who is above physics. Once you accept a magic theory like that, anything is possible, and no argument from physics will be really convincing.

The theory that a horde of tiny invisible magic imps are actually running the physics of the world could fit reality just as well as QFT, and it allows for all sorts of paranormal events, including the fact that the effects disappear under scientific scrutiny. It is only Occam's Razor that prevents us from accepting such a theory, but the Jabbas of this world do not have a razor of that kind.
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Old 13th June 2014, 08:44 AM   #9
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From my non-sci pov: on this talk of "human scale", could there be some field that oscillates and only comes into our scale now and then? IOW, it's not there to be detected most of the time, but could be there under circumstances we don't know how to control.

I realize this is a kind of special pleading, but I ask with that in mind because I can imagine the question coming from a woo.
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Old 13th June 2014, 04:30 PM   #10
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Thanks for this.
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Old 13th June 2014, 08:53 PM   #11
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Originally Posted by Donn View Post
From my non-sci pov: on this talk of "human scale", could there be some field that oscillates and only comes into our scale now and then? IOW, it's not there to be detected most of the time, but could be there under circumstances we don't know how to control.

I realize this is a kind of special pleading, but I ask with that in mind because I can imagine the question coming from a woo.
If there were such an oscillation, the results of experiments in particle accelerators like the LHC would oscillate too. Particle accelerators tend to run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and are very, very closely monitored, so we'd notice such an event instantly.
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Old 14th June 2014, 12:07 AM   #12
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Originally Posted by Donn View Post
Okay, I hear you. QFT may have closed many gaps, but there are still surprises and permutations within the forces that are left.
That's the key - well said. I will add that closing all other possible gaps is hard, really hard. And then you have to prove that you have closed all the other gaps, which is even harder.
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Old 14th June 2014, 01:36 AM   #13
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Originally Posted by PixyMisa View Post
It does violate neurobiology and neurochemistry and physics, though. For example, microscopic flying worms would have no directional control due to the Brownian motion of the molecules in the air.
No worries though - we adjust the explanation, tweak it until it becomes possible. Make the worms bigger. Adjust other things. The most important thing though, if you want to dismiss all possible explanations, you have to consider all possible explanations. That is, essentially, impossible.

Originally Posted by PixyMisa View Post
If psychic powers were real and worked via flying worms, we would already know. Within the laws of physics as we know them, it is not possible for psychic powers to work this way and not leave evidence.
Agreed! Once we find a psychic, we can do the tests. And if the testers think of flying worms, they can control for it. But to claim we would already know is false - it assumes we have found a psychic and done extensive testing.

Even if it turns out this one-in-a-billion psychic uses flying worms, that would be extraordinary, at least to me. And maybe that is where the disagreement is... we are using different definitions of extraordinary and woo.
(I see the new thread ... I will continue there)
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Old 14th June 2014, 02:24 AM   #14
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Originally Posted by Aepervius View Post
I wish Jabba & a few other would watch the last 10 minutes of that video...
I put the video in my FB page- the more people who watch the entire video or even only the last 10 minutes of it, the better.

Originally Posted by Donn View Post
From my non-sci pov: on this talk of "human scale", could there be some field that oscillates and only comes into our scale now and then? IOW, it's not there to be detected most of the time, but could be there under circumstances we don't know how to control.

I realize this is a kind of special pleading, but I ask with that in mind because I can imagine the question coming from a woo.
Do you mean something like the Nexus?
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Old 14th June 2014, 02:32 AM   #15
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Originally Posted by Innocuous View Post
No worries though - we adjust the explanation, tweak it until it becomes possible. Make the worms bigger.
If the worms were bigger, we'd see them, not to mention the fatal cerebral hemorrhages the mind-reading targets would suffer from having worms bore through their brains.

And if they were smaller, they couldn't possibly do what you're suggesting (hypothetically).

Quote:
Adjust other things. The most important thing though, if you want to dismiss all possible explanations, you have to consider all possible explanations. That is, essentially, impossible.
No, it's not. Since we only have to consider possible explanations, and there aren't any, it's quite easy.

Quote:
Agreed! Once we find a psychic, we can do the tests. And if the testers think of flying worms, they can control for it. But to claim we would already know is false - it assumes we have found a psychic and done extensive testing.
Again, no. There is no possible way for psychic powers to work, that we haven't already tested for and ruled out. This was mostly true already; the discovery of the Higgs boson and the confirmation of the Standard Model was just the final nail in the coffin by ruling out the "maybe there's some new law of physics" excuse.

If psychic powers were real, we would already have indisputable evidence, either of the psychic powers directly, or of something seriously weird going on in physics, chemistry, or biology in the everyday world. There is nothing there. Psychic powers do not exist.

Quote:
Even if it turns out this one-in-a-billion psychic uses flying worms, that would be extraordinary, at least to me.
Yes, it would be extraordinary. Also, impossible.

Quote:
And maybe that is where the disagreement is... we are using different definitions of extraordinary and woo.

(I see the new thread ... I will continue there)
Sure.
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Old 14th June 2014, 04:29 AM   #16
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Originally Posted by PixyMisa View Post
If there were such an oscillation, the results of experiments in particle accelerators like the LHC would oscillate too. Particle accelerators tend to run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and are very, very closely monitored, so we'd notice such an event instantly.
To play woo's advocate, is this not a case of no black swans? i.e. even with 24/7 and decade-long scrutiny, the black swam fields simply did not visit during that time?

Is there a way to argue from QFT that such hypothetical invasions of our scale are impossible?

Originally Posted by pakeha View Post
Do you mean something like the Nexus?
Sure, why not.
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Old 14th June 2014, 04:57 AM   #17
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Originally Posted by Donn View Post
To play woo's advocate, is this not a case of no black swans? i.e. even with 24/7 and decade-long scrutiny, the black swam fields simply did not visit during that time?
Well, there are some assumptions built in, but they aren't at all goofy. For instance, the assumption that the laws and constants of physics apply throughout the universe and don't vary in time (except under extreme conditions). We also take it for granted that Nature isn't capricious (God's not trying to fool us).
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Old 14th June 2014, 05:11 AM   #18
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I suppose if a field from a different scale shrank-down and visited the human scale, it would have to fit in the range of fields we already know, ergo it would not be a unique black swan on a visit.

Metaphors suck. I wish I had a better brain!
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Old 14th June 2014, 06:40 AM   #19
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Originally Posted by PixyMisa View Post
The result of this is that any claimed effect that happens in our everyday world (and not just in a particle accelerator or a supernova) and that also requires new laws of physics is automatically known to be false.

But, technically, life after death wouldn't really be happening "in our everyday world", would it?
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Old 14th June 2014, 06:46 AM   #20
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Originally Posted by Ed Glosser View Post
But, technically, life after death wouldn't really be happening "in our everyday world", would it?
*Whistles blows as a little cloth flag lands on the field*

Special Pleading. Invoking of "magical imaginary other place where physics doesn't work." 10 Yard Penalty. Repeat 2nd Down.
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Old 14th June 2014, 07:03 AM   #21
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Originally Posted by JoeBentley View Post
*Whistles blows as a little cloth flag lands on the field*

Special Pleading. Invoking of "magical imaginary other place where physics doesn't work." 10 Yard Penalty. Repeat 2nd Down.

I'm sorry, but could you just state what you're saying in plain English, because I'm new here and I don't quite get the lingo.
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Old 14th June 2014, 07:18 AM   #22
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Originally Posted by JoeBentley View Post
*Whistles blows as a little cloth flag lands on the field*

Special Pleading. Invoking of "magical imaginary other place where physics doesn't work." 10 Yard Penalty. Repeat 2nd Down.
Yabbut, it gives you another square on your bingo card, no?
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Old 14th June 2014, 07:29 AM   #23
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Do people here usually quote something from someone's post and then ignore the person who posted it and have conversations with other people over that person's head?

Also, am I wrong in that the hypothetical concept of an afterlife as generally perceived is based on it existing separately from the physical world, with its own laws and functioning?
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Old 14th June 2014, 07:31 AM   #24
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Originally Posted by Ed Glosser View Post
I'm sorry, but could you just state what you're saying in plain English, because I'm new here and I don't quite get the lingo.
He was using a football metaphor to say heaven,hell or any other kind of mystic plane do not exist and until you can prove they exist you can not add them to the discussion.
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Old 14th June 2014, 07:37 AM   #25
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Originally Posted by Ed Glosser View Post
Do people here usually quote something from someone's post and then ignore the person who posted it and have conversations with other people over that person's head?

Also, am I wrong in that the hypothetical concept of an afterlife as generally perceived is based on it existing separately from the physical world, with its own laws and functioning?
No you are not wrong about being able to imagine a magical place and have that magical place do or be anything you can imagine.
So.
Hypothetical does not count in this discussion.
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Old 14th June 2014, 07:37 AM   #26
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Originally Posted by Brattus View Post
He was using a football metaphor to say heaven,hell or any other kind of mystic plane do not exist and until you can prove they exist you can not add them to the discussion.

Thank you! That makes sense.

Why is that, by the way? Why can't you add a hypothetical "mystic plane" to the discussion, seeing as the video we were asked to watch and that I just spent 49 minutes of my life on ended by explaining why a place like that doesn't exist?
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Old 14th June 2014, 07:48 AM   #27
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Originally Posted by Ed Glosser View Post
Thank you! That makes sense.

Why is that, by the way? Why can't you add a hypothetical "mystic plane" to the discussion, seeing as the video we were asked to watch and that I just spent 49 minutes of my life on ended by explaining why a place like that doesn't exist?
Are you, in fact, offering an explanation of how this "mystic" plane does, or even could, exist?

There is evidence for the tenets of QFT (as laid out by Carroll, in the video), including evidence for why, if the "mystic" plane exists, it would either be capable of interacting with our particles-and-fields reality, and therefore be detectable; or, it would be indetectable by our fields-and-particles senses and instruments, and therefore be incapable of interacting with reality.

What counter-evidence do you offer?
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Old 14th June 2014, 07:48 AM   #28
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Originally Posted by Ed Glosser View Post
Thank you! That makes sense.

Why is that, by the way? Why can't you add a hypothetical "mystic plane" to the discussion, seeing as the video we were asked to watch and that I just spent 49 minutes of my life on ended by explaining why a place like that doesn't exist?
Because regardless of videos watched or unseen hypothetical, imaginary places do not exist no matter how hard a person may wish them to.

In other words we can only work with what we have to work with in the reality of the physical world.

It makes no difference what my personal beliefs, leaps of faith or opinions are regarding trees. Trees are what they are with or without me doing anything. That is because they are a real physical thing in a real physical world.

Hope that helps.
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Old 14th June 2014, 08:02 AM   #29
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Originally Posted by Donn View Post
I suppose if a field from a different scale shrank-down and visited the human scale, it would have to fit in the range of fields we already know, ergo it would not be a unique black swan on a visit.

Metaphors suck. I wish I had a better brain!
There is a hypothetical point to be made, here, and you illustrate it nicely.

If there were a "mystic plane" outside of, or orthogonal to, particles-and-fields understanding of reality, it could not interact with what we know except in a way consonant with our fields-and-particles understanding.

It is, in fact, theoretically possible that our particles-and-fields model is fundamentally wrong, and that a proper understanding or reality would required replacing fields-and-particles with fields-particles-and woo!; however, such a rebuilding would have to be built upon new understanding of new evidence.

"I beleive in ghosts" is not a reason to state that the P-&-F model is wrong. Neither is "there has to be more", or "Whaddabout 'god', eh?"

I will cheerfully admit to the existence, as they say, of anything for which concrete, empirical, objective, congruent, fruitful, and luminous evidence is produced.

Until then the onus is on anyone claiming that a "different plane" exists.

.
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Old 14th June 2014, 08:08 AM   #30
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Originally Posted by Brattus View Post
Because regardless of videos watched or unseen hypothetical, imaginary places do not exist no matter how hard a person may wish them to.

In other words we can only work with what we have to work with in the reality of the physical world.

It makes no difference what my personal beliefs, leaps of faith or opinions are regarding trees. Trees are what they are with or without me doing anything. That is because they are a real physical thing in a real physical world.

Hope that helps.

It certainly helps, insofar as it clears up what your personal point of view on this matter is. Although, I have to say, I wasn't tearing my hair trying to figure that out. Still, I have to disagree with you that science only deals with "what we have to work with in the reality of the physical world", because our understanding of the physical world is defined by whatever hypotheses survive experimental testing, and that means a lot of things need to be imagined to exist before we can tell whether or not they actually do exist. For example, magnetism proved to be a real thing, while animal magnetism did not, but at some point both things were only hypothetical, or imaginary, powers.

But I don't mean to intentionally misunderstand you, so I'm going to assume that what you're really saying is that this discussion is about something else. Since I don't want to further muddle the real issue here, perhaps it's best if I wait for PixyMisa to return and explain what the debate was intended to be about.

My bad.
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Old 14th June 2014, 08:13 AM   #31
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Originally Posted by Slowvehicle View Post
I will cheerfully admit to the existence, as they say, of anything for which concrete, empirical, objective, congruent, fruitful, and luminous evidence is produced.

Until then the onus is on anyone claiming that a "different plane" exists.

But doesn't the video tell us that whatever evidence anyone comes up with, it is trumped by the Standard Model, meaning that even if both things appear to be true, only the Standard Model can actually be true, not the other thing that seems to contradict it, whatever that thing may be?
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Old 14th June 2014, 08:25 AM   #32
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Originally Posted by Ed Glosser View Post
But I don't mean to intentionally misunderstand you, so I'm going to assume that what you're really saying is that this discussion is about something else. Since I don't want to further muddle the real issue here, perhaps it's best if I wait for PixyMisa to return and explain what the debate was intended to be about.
I doubt that PixyMisa actually intended for there to be a debate, though PixyMisa was, doubtless, at least somewhat prepared for one. PixyMisa seems to have presented a resource that strongly supports the position that it is not reasonable to accept a number of religious and pseudo-scientific attempts to evade accountability and supposedly gives a solid case for why it is reasonable to currently accept that known quantum physics are sufficient to explain the evidence at our disposal.

As always, it cannot falsify fundamentally unfalsifiable propositions, but such propositions are, as a rule, unreasonable to accept in the first place.
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Old 14th June 2014, 08:41 AM   #33
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Originally Posted by Aridas View Post
I doubt that PixyMisa actually intended for there to be a debate, though PixyMisa was, doubtless, at least somewhat prepared for one. PixyMisa seems to have presented a resource that strongly supports the position that it is not reasonable to accept a number of religious and pseudo-scientific attempts to evade accountability and supposedly gives a solid case for why it is reasonable to currently accept that known quantum physics are sufficient to explain the evidence at our disposal.

As always, it cannot falsify fundamentally unfalsifiable propositions, but such propositions are, as a rule, unreasonable to accept in the first place.

I'm just frustrated because I just watched (a few hours ago) a fifty-minute lecture of something I didn't get any of, and then with five minutes left I'm informed that this is how we know there is no life after death. It just seemed to me that there was nothing there in support of that claim.

I'm not saying there is nothing in quantum field theory that supports ruling out astrology, reincarnation and black magic, I just didn't really get how the impossibility of introducing new particles, fields or laws means that the supernatural cannot exist. Exactly why can't it exist within the limits of the Standard Model? That's not a rhetorical question, BTW.
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Old 14th June 2014, 08:45 AM   #34
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Originally Posted by Ed Glosser View Post
Thank you! That makes sense.

Why is that, by the way? Why can't you add a hypothetical "mystic plane" to the discussion, seeing as the video we were asked to watch and that I just spent 49 minutes of my life on ended by explaining why a place like that doesn't exist?
I want to add a hypothetical "mystic forum" where everything I post is treated as gold plated words of wisdom.
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Old 14th June 2014, 08:50 AM   #35
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Originally Posted by Ed Glosser View Post
But doesn't the video tell us that whatever evidence anyone comes up with, it is trumped by the Standard Model, meaning that even if both things appear to be true, only the Standard Model can actually be true, not the other thing that seems to contradict it, whatever that thing may be?
No, and what a curious interpretation.

We accept the standard model as true because of evidence.

Evidence that we have misunderstood a facet of our understanding of the standard model would, or course, require reformulating it, as, for instance relativity required (and may yet require) a reformulation of our understanding of the mechanics of gravity.

OTH, at this point, all the evidence we have points to the standard model being "closed"; any "black swan force" or "black swan plane of existence" would need to be supported by evidence.
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Old 14th June 2014, 08:50 AM   #36
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Originally Posted by tsig View Post
I want to add a hypothetical "mystic forum" where everything I post is treated as gold plated words of wisdom.

You're already there.
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Old 14th June 2014, 08:53 AM   #37
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Originally Posted by Ed Glosser View Post
You're already there.
I think you may be mistaking tsig for Garrette...(he's a genius, you know)
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Old 14th June 2014, 08:54 AM   #38
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Originally Posted by Ed Glosser View Post
Why is that, by the way? Why can't you add a hypothetical "mystic plane" to the discussion, seeing as the video we were asked to watch and that I just spent 49 minutes of my life on ended by explaining why a place like that doesn't exist?
There's a reason Special Pleading, especially of the level you were doing, is not allowed in intellectual discussions.

"But how do you know this thing that doesn't work in this universe doesn't work in this special other universe that I'm completely making up and providing no evidence for and am only putting in the converstation so I can provide a backdoor justification for Woo" is not a rational, logical argument. It's not a hypothosis. It's just randomly making stuff up. It's invoking magic. It's mental masturbation.
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Old 14th June 2014, 08:54 AM   #39
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Originally Posted by Ed Glosser View Post
I'm just frustrated because I just watched (a few hours ago) a fifty-minute lecture of something I didn't get any of, and then with five minutes left I'm informed that this is how we know there is no life after death. It just seemed to me that there was nothing there in support of that claim.

I'm not saying there is nothing in quantum field theory that supports ruling out astrology, reincarnation and black magic, I just didn't really get how the impossibility of introducing new particles, fields or laws means that the supernatural cannot exist. Exactly why can't it exist within the limits of the Standard Model? That's not a rhetorical question, BTW.
OK. Let's unpack that.

In your opinion, what is "life"?
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Old 14th June 2014, 08:58 AM   #40
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A fine video. Thanks.
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